The complexities of conventional laser system designs used for the treatment of medical conditions of the eye hinder the attainment of requisite system functionality, as well as negatively impact system cost, size, and weight and increase the chances of system failure. Generally, in the current state of the art of photocoagulative laser surgery, for example, a treatment laser beam and an aiming light beam originate from two different sources, requiring a series of optical elements (and a substantial segment of expensive high maintenance fiber-optic cable to connect the main laser unit to its delivery system) for superposing both laser beams with the very high degree of precision needed for such procedures. This need to superimpose the aiming and treatment laser beam make it difficult to integrate existing laser devices with other complementary systems for diagnostic, data capture, and treatment purposes, resulting, at best, in cumbersome low mobility systems with low power efficiency and modest functionality. Better control and directing means are required in existing systems, as is the ability to enable temporally coincident treatments at multiple target locations and/or to enable the scanning of a treatment laser beam over time to multiple target locations. Current treatments allow only one point on a subject to be accessed when using, for example, a method such as laser indirect ophthalmoscopy. This is time consuming, especially when it comes to panretinal photocoagulation (PRP). Current laser treatment systems are also not equipped with diagnostic and/or data capture/documentation capabilities.
The current state of the art of pattern scanning lasers involves superimposing an aiming beam and a treatment beam with a pattern generator relying on galvomirrors, one inside the laser unit and two in the delivery system, such as found in US patent application number US 20130345683 A1 to Mordaunt, et al. The delivery system is connected to the laser unit via a fiber-optic cable. The first galvomirror projects the treatment beam into the inlet of a fiber-optic cable at the desired output during the whole period of scanning the laser pattern. The first galvomirror projects the beam toward the fiber-optic cable (ON time) to produce a laser burn and then shifts the beam away from the fiber (OFF time) where the laser power is wasted as it hits a dark barrier before the laser beam is re-directed toward the fiber-optic cable. During the OFF time, the last two galvomirrors move to a new position so that during the ON time the laser projects to a different location of the targeted tissue. The fact that the laser source is producing a treatment beam during the whole period of scanning a pattern into the targeted tissues, even when the treatment beam is not projected into the targeted tissues (OFF time), increases the power consumption by the laser system, increases the heat production, requires efficient active cooling, and shortens the life span of the laser source. Additionally, the power output of the laser is dependent on the very accurate projection of the treatment beam into the sub-millimeter (typically 0.1-0.2 mm) fiber-optic core. Any minor misalignment of the galvomirror can cause a major change in the output power of the laser. Also, the dimensions of the projected pattern are sensitive to the distance of the pattern generator from the targeted tissues, i.e. the further away the targeted tissues are from the pattern generator, the larger the pattern projected. Some existing pattern generating lasers can deliver patterns of laser burns to the targeted tissues via a slit lamp delivery system, but when the laser indirect ophthalmoscope is used as a delivery system, the laser can be used as individual (single point) burns with no pattern generating capabilities. Furthermore, existing laser indirect ophthalmoscopes function only as delivery systems for photocoagulative lasers via a fiber-optic cable. Because of the complexity of such laser systems, they are too large and too heavy to be incorporated in a head worn laser indirect ophthalmoscope.